Re: Fitness and the meaning of life [fwd from B. Martens]
DON MIKULECKY (MIKULECKY%VCUVAX.BITNET@letterbox.rl.ac.uk)
Fri, 29 Sep 1995 09:55:59 -0400
Don Mikulecky, MCV/VCU, Mikulecky@gems.vcu.edu
Reply to Bertin Martins:
As a biologist, I am inclined to see the "fitness" idea as more or less passe.
Recently, I was involved in reviewing Weber and Depew's "Darwinism Evolving"
for MIT Press and got the impresion that the case for alternatives grows
with recent developments in complexity research, etc. The easiest way
to dismiss "fitness" as the main selection criterea is to imagine Brian
Arthurs "lock-in and increasing returns" in economic systems operating
in biology. Then the notion of "fitness" would become ambigous at best and
would necessarily be a post-hoc concept only with no predictive value
whatsoever.
Am I missing something?
Best regards,
Don Mikulecky